Acupuncture reduces tonsillectomy surgery pain in children, reveals a study.
Children often suffer from pain for 10 days and even more after tonsillectomy surgery. Codeine was initially used to treat the pain but FDA banned the drug in February due to complications. A recent study reveals acupuncture (without any narcotic usage) helps in reducing pain after tonsillectomy surgery in children.
The study was conducted by Dr. James Ochi, an ENT surgeon who has been in this profession for more than 20 years and uses acupuncture to ease pain.. "I've been using medical acupuncture for years to help my patients suffer less pain after surgery. Now that it is unsafe to use codeine for these kids, I wanted to see if acupuncture without the use of narcotics was helpful for my patients," said Dr. Ochi, reports Science Daily.
31 patients aged between 2 and 17 were given acupuncture treatment after tonsillectomy surgery. The pain rate fell sharply after the acupuncture treatment; from 5.52 percent (prior to the treatment) to 1.92 percent. The patients were given the acupuncture treatment for more than 15 minutes and the relief persisted for nearly two and a half days, the study reveals. It is published in the latest issue of International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology.
"The data tentatively suggest that acupuncture decreases perceived pain in children and adolescents after tonsillectomy," said Ochi, according to a recent post on medical express."These data-combined with the cost effectiveness, safety, and ease of administering acupuncture-suggest that further studies exploring the effectiveness of acupuncture in juveniles after tonsillectomy are merited."
As FDA has banned the use of codeine, tonsillectomy patients often go for substitute drugs like Tylenol and ibuprofen, which are also not safe for young ones.
Acupuncture has to be administered by a trained person, otherwise it can be harmful, reveals a recent post on examhealth. The practitioners need to use disposable needles from sealed packages and clean the surface (body part) well before using the pins.
